Summer Vacation
by SotF
Summary: Part of the Speed Freak saga. One of the sequals to Overdrive. After the destruction of Acaltha, Xander as Super Sonic ended thrown into another dimension. This is his journey home. Onwards through the Stargate. Abandoned
1. Lost In The Multiverse

AN: I was planning on waiting a bit longer before writing this, but the story is addictive to write, and hopefully for you to read. I'm also working on a story set during the summer about Zero. If you don't know who Zero is, read the last chapter of Overdrive. As for where Xander/Sonic is, if you haven't realized yet, he ended up in the Artemis Fowl series. After Eternity Code, so it will have a lot of fun, and I am working on expanding Nicole's personality, she's developing, in both the comics and the series with the Freedom Fighters, Nicole only had a rudimentary AI, and the reason given was that they didn't trust the more advanced ones that Robotnik uses due to the way that they work. Nicole's programming compiled information and she achieved true sentience in Overdrive.  
  
The blinding light had died and Super Sonic relaxed slightly as he realized that he wasn't in Hell like the portal had been made to do. But he wasn't on the ground either, miles upwards and above the clouds. The full power of the Chaos Emeralds pierced the clouds and showed a place he had never seen before. It was beautiful and serene, but it wasn't anywhere near Sunnydale, and he was rather sure he wasn't above the same world he had been in mere instants earlier.  
  
Instinctively he flipped out Nicole.  
  
"Nicole, scan the area and report," he said, the panic in his tone of voice pushing the AI to work as fast as she could.  
  
"Location, five miles above sea level, nearest location, Ireland," she reported.  
  
"Well, then I head home, plot me a course to Sunnydale."  
  
"Connection to GPS satellites obtained, error, no reference to Sunnydale on local maps, the location on prior maps before the dimensional travel is empty, the only thing referenced as Sunnydale is a military base just outside of Los Angeles."  
  
"What? Use the scanning program, locate any reference to the paranormal, and anything with possible technology that can get us home."  
  
"Understood," the AI answered as Super Sonic lowered himself to the ground, gently touching ground.  
  
"Scan complete, two sources of requested energy signatures, not an exact match, but it does fit closely with magical parameters that you requested, also there are three possibilities that may have the requisite technology to send us home, two of them match the magical signatures, the other, while the least likely to have the technology, is the most accessible to us, it is within fifteen miles, on the surface. One of the other two is buried nearly ten miles underground and the other is underwater at a depth that is not easily accessible."  
  
"Just great, another Labyrinth Zone, just what I needed," Sonic snapped, his sarcasm coming back to him.  
  
"Interesting, the computer technology does not reach my own level, I am getting a full upload from their system and filtering it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I have identified the groups with the tech below ground and the one above ground, below ground there is a collection of races known together as fairies."  
  
"Do they know that we're here?"  
  
"Undoubtedly, our arrival here would have given headaches to every being with magical energy on the planet, the chaos energy disrupted the portal and left us here, also, I just sent them a little greeting by pining them."  
  
"You're playing Ping Pong with them?"  
  
"Honestly, don't you ever listen?"  
  
"Whatever, what is the projected response to this situation?"  
  
"Unclear at the moment, perhaps hostility."  
  
"Oh great," Super Sonic muttered as he relaxed and changed back into Sonic and then to Xander, "The welcoming party wants to shoot us."  
  
"Or it could be curiosity, I have insufficient data to make a conclusion as to how they would react."  
  
"What do you mean by a glowing mudman!" Commander Julius Root of the LEP screamed at the centaur.  
  
"Erm, well..." Foaly started to say as he brought up the scans, "Well, the computer got pinged and I back tracked it, found the source, they didn't even try to hide it, and brought up the satellite footage of the area, its within the scanning radius of that one you ordered put up above Fowl's place."  
  
"He's behind this!" the elf roared, his face turning several new shades of red.  
  
"No, this is something new, and the scans couldn't differentiate the figure, its not within normal sight of the camera, but on the edge, we just spotted the glow and that vanished before the camera could lock on and shift position, it showed a human standing there holding some sort of devise, we couldn't identify, but the glow coincided with that burst everyone felt a little bit back."  
  
"Send a retrieval team, deal with this now!"  
  
"Should I get Holly on it?"  
  
"Short? Why not, she has the most experience in dealing with mudmen."  
  
The computer screens turned black and a lime green cursor was all that showed on one.  
  
"Wha?" the centaur managed to say as a line of text appeared.  
  
[Hello...]  
  
"Foaly, what is this?"  
  
"I don't know, but I aim to find out."  
  
He began to type back.  
  
[Hi.]  
  
[Interesting, your system seems to be a variant of the type Robotnik used, far more primitive, but workable.]  
  
[Primitive! Who the hell are you to say that this is primitive!]  
  
[I am Nicole, Artificial Intelligence designed by Princess Sally Acorn to aid in the defeat of Doctor Ivo Robotnik on the planet of Mobius, unknown if there is an analogue in this dimension, there was not in the last one I entered.]  
  
[Dimension?]  
  
[Yes, my ally and I entered this world through a rift caused by a demon in his world.]  
  
[Demon?]  
  
[Yes, a hostile entity known as Acaltha, it was supposed to create a gateway to a hell dimension, the blood of my bearer was used by another to open the rift, his blood should also have sealed it, but the chaos energy surge created an unknown side effect and we ended up here, no who are you?]  
  
[Foaly, genius extraordinaire!]  
  
[Genius is highly overrated without the courage to do more with it than sit at home and brag about it, do not brag about smarts if it is not useful when it is in need.]  
  
The centaur almost screamed at the last reply  
  
[Interesting,] Nicole continued.  
  
[What?]  
  
[I'm patching into your audio communications systems,] Nicole answered as the Ai wrote her voice came from the speakers matching it, then the screens returned to normal, "And I have just gotten a complete download of your database, what is recorded is rather interesting."  
  
"Oh crap," Root managed to mutter, "Get that Retrieval team out now, and get Holly Short in here yesterday!"  
  
Xander groaned as he heard an electronic chuckle coming from Nicole, the conversation the AI was having wasn't heard, but she was having fun at someone's expense.  
  
"Nicole, please don't get them mad at us, we may need their technology to get us home!"  
  
"Well, I found someone who's fun to annoy, one of them is a centaur and his face is almost milk white, and the others is turning all sorts of colors."  
  
Xander shook his head slowly, the AI was improving on his own annoying tendencies to make them insane.  
  
"Alexander, I am detecting nearly a dozen power signatures closing in on us, they don't appear in the visible spectrum, I'm only sensing them via air currents, wait a second, accelerating frame rate of sensors, got them, seems like a commando team, they have weapons drawn."  
  
"I'll deal with them then," Xander said as he reached for a Power Ring but found none, "Oh crap, I can't transform."  
  
"Then there will be the additional hazard of fighting invisible foes, Sonics sight can see them due to the variance between Xander and Sonic vision, Sonics are designed to operate faster than a humans."  
  
"Now you tell me, suggestions?"  
  
"Strike lower than on a normal person, they aren't very tall."  
  
"I'm fighting midgets?"  
  
"No, elves, try not to kill them."  
  
"Don't worry about that, other than the Watchers, I don't kill non- demons, or well psychotic robots or deranged gods."  
  
Xander lunged, twirling through a strike that he had learned as Sonic, a palm strike that connected with the closest target as Nicole's holoprojector went to work, "I'm going to project their locations, should make things easier."  
  
The black haired warrior nodded, a snap kick sending another flying as Nicole showed him his foes.  
  
"Surrender mudman," one of them said, a pistol of some kind materializing out of thin air.  
  
"Nicole, advise," he whispered.  
  
"Unknown, I'm still incorporating the data retrieved from the centaurs computers."  
  
Xander closed his eyes and started to hold up his hands after clipping Nicole back onto his belt.  
  
He focused for a moment and felt a power surge.  
  
"What the..." the fairy with the pistol stuttered as Xander transformed into Sonic.  
  
"Now this is more like it," the blue streak chuckled, "Alright slow pokes, lets dance!"  
  
The LEPretrieval troopers began to back away, very slowly as Sonic focused, feeling the place where the barrier had been in his head, and felt the energy wash through him again, Super Sonic emerged.  
  
"Julius," Foaly yelled, "We've got problems, the sensors for detecting rogues built into the retrieval teams helmets is reading a power level off the..." an explosion as the devise he was speaking of exploded, "...Scale."  
  
"What!"  
  
"He has some sort of magic and its transforming him, just look at the screen!"  
  
Root moved up and his jaw dropped open, the cigar falling to the floor as a golden hedgehog hovered a foot off the ground, radiating waves of energy as laser fire from the Fairy Blasters didn't so much as scratch him.  
  
"How?"  
  
"I don't know." 


	2. Fairy Land

AN: Well, with 'Zero Point' finished as well as the side story 'Of A God And A Principal' which is exclusively at the Speed Freak yahoo group. With Zero's first adventure complete, now it's time to do some more work on Xanders end of the Multiverse.  
  
Sonic hovered for a moment as the elven commando team, the Sword of Acorn was held in a loose grip in his right hand.  
  
"Surrender mudboy," one demanded, weapon coming to bare on him.  
  
"Not a chance," Super Sonic replied, lashing out with the blade and removing the barrel of the fairy blaster, "Now then, let's play a little game."  
  
Sonic sheathed the blade, clearing his head and drawing on the blades power, he felt tired, but he wasn't going to get shot up by midgets with ray guns.  
  
The glow he put out grew and a wicked smile as he brought his hand up into a classic gesture for 'bring it on' and so they charged.  
  
"What's the big deal?" Holly Short responded as she gasped for air, she had just been ordered to take a week off after the last incident with Artemis Fowl.  
  
Root had insisted on it after her attachment to the human who had been mindwiped. And almost as soon as she reached her apartment, she had been called back. An hours drive there and back, but at least Root wasn't screaming yet, of course it could be that he was in the ops booth with Foaly.  
  
"Foaly, sitrep," she asked as she entered the booth, noticing Root panting, apparently he'd run out of air and was trying to get a second wind, or by now it could be the third or forth.  
  
"Started with a strange energy surge, caught our attention because it was under one of the few satellites we actually own up there, the one over Fowls place, then we got a flash and we saw a glowing thing drop to earth, then we got pinged from something named Nicole that I managed to track back to that point, found a mudman standing there."  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"Well...Root ordered Trouble's squad up, they got beaten after the guy changed into some blue creature and then started glowing, and in less than a minute, the teams unconscious, then the guy passed out, shifting back to the blue form."  
  
"So why is it that I got called?"  
  
"Because when he started glowing, it registered as magic with a concentration greater than the combined populations of Haven and Atlantis, not to mention that sword of his and those energy attacks, the one he used left a crater three yards across and it looked like he wasn't even trying to charge it."  
  
"You mentioned a sword," the LEPrecon officer managed to say, the whole conversation had taken a turn for the surreal.  
  
"It cut through one of the pistols like it wasn't even there, did a number on the wings as well."  
  
"Not good," she muttered to herself, "Not good at all, so what's happening now?"  
  
A second Retrieval team is bringing back the wounded now and surveying the damage, the kids being brought back now as well, they couldn't disarm him, the officer who tried got his magic drained instantly and it still wouldn't budge."  
  
"Drained?"  
  
"As if it was depleted to the point he needed the ritual, tonight he's being sent up to do that in a shuttle because he can't shield."  
  
"Once again, D'arvit!"  
  
Sonic started to come to, his mind slowly working through what had happened to him. He twitched, arms feeling a band holding it down. His eyes slowly opened a slit, viewing his surroundings.  
  
There wasn't enough room to use most of his abilities, but it seemed far more high tech than he had seen in his world. He spotted his pack leaning against the wall as a dull thrum reached his ears.  
  
He glanced around him, looking for those who had trapped him, memories of what happened slowly returning. Sonic had won the fight, but then he felt so tired and collapsed among his foes.  
  
Then he remembered his form and focused for a moment, releasing the transformation as he had when he was at home. The pale light encasing him for a moment as the spikes slowly receded and vanished as his human features to predominance over his hedgehog ones, the gloves vanishing and his shoes reverting back to his hiking boots.  
  
On the plus side, his hands were free, and he snatched Nicole from a counter.  
  
"Nicole, a little help here," he commented as he activated his companion.  
  
"Restraints disabled," she responded, "And I have analyzed what happened above ground."  
  
"Soon, I need to get out of here, the midgets are really starting to tick me off," he answered.  
  
"Keep your energy flow up, keep the intake, you burned through quite a bit in that fight and your currently stable, but you need a more if you want to try that again with out the same result."  
  
"Sure thing Nicole, just get me to where I can raise it."  
  
"I've hacked the system, just follow instructions and I'll lead you to where you can get some food, high energy should be the best, namely sugars."  
  
"Sure thing," he said as the door unlocked and slid open, revealing a hallway, "Where are we?"  
  
"I believe they refer to it as Haven, the underground city that I mentioned earlier, anyway, I'm modifying the output of my holographic projector to grant a short tem cloaking field for you, it will be visual only, motion detectors and other sensors will still detect you though, be careful and quiet."  
  
"Sure, just project a map inside of the cloak to show me where we're going."  
  
"I'll do one better," the AI responded, projecting the map complete with flashing dots of different colors, "Red dots are sonic sensors, blue are motion, yellow are IR, and green are the people moving around."  
  
He nodded in response and set off after grabbing his bag and adjusting his blade, "I'm making a pit stop at the armory, not a good plan to bring a sword into a laser fight unless I'm in fast forward mode."  
  
"Appropriate, the swords special properties aren't as easily accessible in your current form," Nicole responded.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"As a preventative measure against Robotnik, no humans can easily activate it, but there is a way, the data is not stored in my memory."  
  
"Well, we'll figure it out eventually, hopefully when we aren't staring down a gun barrel again."  
  
"Agreed, and I just may have an idea, how would you like to disable pretty much everything this place has to offer, most likely their highest technology isn't centered here, so it won't effect our chances of discovering a way home."  
  
"Tell me more..."  
  
"It goes like this..." 


	3. LEP Meets EMP

AN: With Xander on the run through LEP headquarters, I've decided to have some fun with this part and deal with the fireworks of Nicole's plan of escape. And I am working up something funny involving the D-Board when I get to the point where they can build one, it gave me an idea for a short side story that could be interesting.

big-bad-kyubi- Thanks, it means a lot

Kat Hawkins- Well, here goes more

Destiny's Dragon- Thanks!  
  
Root was yelling about how this situation was all Foaly's fault, a second human had found the People. It didn't matter to old beetroot that he had no control of the situation, nor that it was something far more advanced than they were, heck artificial intelligence was something was out of his league in the first place, it was one of the few problems that just didn't make any sense, and this one went through Haven's defenses like they didn't even exist.  
  
Holly was watching the video of the encounter on the surface with shock, this guy fought in a way that portrayed extreme ability, the Neutrino 2002's the team had been armed with didn't even hurt him, and that blade seemed to absorb the energy and just move faster. Heck, even with Butler it had been due to surprise that he had won, this guy just demolished them all with ease.  
  
Trouble Kelp, the only member of his team that was up to walking, was just sitting in the corner. D'arvit, once was bad enough, but to have a mudman capable of pulling this sort of stunt was something he had never expected, nor could his mind even begin to comprehend that sort of power.  
  
. Holly turned and stepped back to take a seat on a chair, and that's when everything went wrong. Screens exploded and devices went haywire.  
  
"What the hell!" Root screamed as he dove for cover amidst the conflagration.  
  
Xander charged through the halls, the cloaking field off, Nicole had given him instructions to wait until the sparks died down before turning her back on, or putting the battery packs into the Neutrino pistols or rifle he had commandeered from the armory on his way to a set of vending machines he had unplugged before setting everything off.  
  
A smile crossed his lips before shattering the glass panel over the front of the machine with a kick, the steel tips of his boots easily breaking the cover. He stocked up on what sounded good from them and slipped off again after plugging the machine back in.  
  
He was enjoying this, it was much cooler than the one in Goldeneye.  
  
The flickering died out and Julius Root crawled out from under a table.  
  
"What the hell was that?"  
  
"I'm guessing that was an EMP," the centaur answered, as he glanced around at all of the ruined hardware around him.  
  
"How did it happen?"  
  
"I don't know..."  
  
"Short, Kelp, check in on our guest," the LEP commander roared at the two elves.  
  
Both dashed out, hoping to avoid the second conflagration of the evening when Mt. St. Beetroot detonated into a tirade at Foaly.  
  
The two elves found the door open and the holding room empty.  
  
"D'arvit," Trouble muttered.  
  
"Root's not gonna like this one bit," Holly answered in kind.  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
Xander climbed onto the roof though the cooling vents and activated Nicole.  
  
"Okay Nicole, I followed your instructions, now what?"  
  
"Arm the wings, I've tapped into them and modified their programming, they should work well enough, we don't need the millennial plus battery life, so I managed to give you the lift you need, but the life tops off around eight hundred years per battery, given time though I could convert them over to my type of power supply for a nearly infinite power supply."  
  
"Could be helpful, but they'd only help me in my human form, Sonic's spikes wouldn't let it attach."  
  
"Well, keep the headset on, I won't be able to put enough attention towards you to project a hologram, so that should help us keep this going, follow the map to the target marked, I'll keep you cloaked as I start working on that shuttle, apparently it's a diplomatic one and it appears to have resisted the EMP somehow."  
  
"We'll figure that out later, for now lets just get their, you get to prep it for us and get us a way out."  
  
With that the human took to the air.  
  
"What do you mean by he's not there?" Root raged at the two elves, "He was locked up, restrained!"  
  
"Well, he's not in the room and well..." Trouble answered.  
  
"Well, the EMP could have done it," Foaly responded, "We don't know much about how it triggered then unless we messed up in shutting that AI down."  
  
"Hey, it had a simple on/off switch on it!"  
  
"Well, then the guy got loose and set this off, choose your scenario, both of them are bad."  
  
Another officer dashed in, completely out of breath, "Sir, we've got a major problem; a shuttle is taking off without clearance."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Root, I just found the origin of the EMP, it started in the armory."  
  
"Oh this cannot be happening."  
  
"Good work," Xander said as he slipped into the hatch of the shuttle as it headed upwards, depositing his sack of goodies in the copilot's seat as Nicole tapped even deeper into the system.  
  
"Let's try the place on the surface, it seems like that would be the best place to start now, any further information on that place?"  
  
"Well, for starters the kid has a file with nearly every law enforcement agency in the world."  
  
"Oh boy, we're screwed."  
  
"Not as much as usual, with the technology that we have obtained we can create a crude devise similar to the D-Board, but I can't control the destination, and it would take a long time to recharge."  
  
"Well, lets get to work, tell me how to do it."


	4. Escapee

AN: I was reading back through the Artemis Fowl series and just started wondering what would happen with the EMP, and well that created Xan's great escape from the LEP. I mean Nicole's the one who masterminded the operation, but I just found that idea funny, the better the tech, the more effective an EMP!  
  
"How long are these tunnels?" Xander asked Nicole as he went to work on the straps for the wings and rigging makeshift holsters and straps for the weaponry he had acquired.  
  
"Five minutes until we reach the shuttle port," Nicole answered, and then I'm not entirely sure what to do," the AI responded.  
  
"What now?"  
  
"They sealed the flight corridor; I can't find an alternate rout to the surface without returning to the city below."  
  
The warrior sighed and adjusted the straps to tighten, "Give me a display of the port, list ceiling heights and such."  
  
"Please tell me you're not planning on doing what I think you're planning!"  
  
He just smirked, "You said the controls are set up like in X-wing.  
  
"How do you get into these messes?"  
  
"Sir, we have the exit secured, there is no way he is getting out through the gate," the officer stationed at Tara said over the communications gear, "It is sealed, I have the two teams of security personnel on standby to do the capture."  
  
"Make sure you do, we still need to get information out of this guy."  
  
"Uh, Sir," Holly stammered at a brief moment of clarity, "Did we actually try talking to him?"  
  
"Um, well..."  
  
"I knew it," she snapped, "You saw the energy this guy was giving off and you had to go and tick him off."  
  
"Sir," the officer yelped, "Sir!"  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"We have a slight problem here."  
  
"I thought you had them boxed in!"  
  
"Well..."  
  
"What is it then?"  
  
"They aren't staying in the box."  
  
"What!" Root nearly screamed before choking on the cigar he had to keep from swallowing.  
  
The sound of shattering windows reached them as the officer dived away from the camera revealing the shuttle plowing through the control center.  
  
"Tell me again why you think this is a good idea," Nicole commented as the shuttle seemed to pause before the sealed exit only moments earlier.  
  
"This is the LEP surrender, we have you surrounded," came a voice through the comms array.  
  
"Well, I have my doubts they would try to stop it for one," the dark haired one said as he closed his eyes for a moment before spinning the shuttle to face the control window, a truly feral smile crossing his lips, "And besides, it'll be fun."  
  
"What you call fun, Alexander Lavelle Harris, I call suicidal!"  
  
"Well, when you put it that way..."  
  
"Why do I even bother?" the AI moaned as Xander gripped the accelerator as sent the craft to full throttle.  
  
"Because you'd have nobody to yell at for being daredevils, well, either that or it could just be that we're friends."  
  
The craft shot forwards like a dart, ripping through the glass of the control array and into the shuttle port itself. He maneuvered clear of the ruined control center and watched the fairies scatter in all directions as the ship crashed along a place with only a foot clearance in any direction.  
  
"Is this really necessary?"  
  
"No, but it makes me feel better after being strapped down."  
  
A loud bang as a sign was ripped off of a wall by one wingtip of the shuttle.  
  
"Please keep us in one piece then," Nicole muttered.  
  
"What?" Xander responded with a wide grin, "Don't you trust my piloting skills?"  
  
Another bang.  
  
"Do you want me to answer honestly?"  
  
A third strike, this one followed a long groan as they forced their way past the abandoned security checkpoint that had been emptied to set the attempted trap for them in the main passage.  
  
"I guess not."  
  
The officer managed to get back to the miraculously undamaged communications screen after digging his way out of the rubble of the control room.  
  
"Sir, I really don't know what we ought to do now, the team can't intercept that ship and the chaos in here is something else, at the moment I'd welcome a dozen trolls on steroids to cleaning up this mess."  
  
A younger officer rushed into the ops booth where Root was leading from one of the few places in the area still working.  
  
"Sir, I have identified the stolen shuttle, it was one of those developed after the encounter with the rogue shuttle dealt with before the incident in the arctic."  
  
"Oh just great, the mudboy stole an armed escort gunship!"  
  
"Alright, Nicole, tell me how to use the weapons systems."  
  
Buttons lit up.  
  
"The thumb is for the energy torpedoes and the trigger is for the cannons."  
  
"Then let's have a little bit more fun with these magic using yahoo's than I was planning on."  
  
"Erm, how?"  
  
"Like this," Xander responded as they entered the central dome of the facility, designed to be a grand statement by the people running it.  
  
The shuttle angled upwards, facing the large glass dome as he armed a pair of missiles.  
  
"You do realize that blowing things up is not always the best option," Nicole groaned, before turning the ships internal camera's to him, seeing him smiling even wider before a worried tone filled her inflections, "Don't you?"  
  
He fired and the dome detonated in a spray of glass as the ship went to full power and the cloaking shield powering up to full. 


	5. Memory Lane

AN: Look, just because I have a group for the stories doesn't mean that I don't like reviews, please keep reviewing this, please! They let me know that this is still working. Sorry it's a short chapter, it just doesn't want to be longer.

Ronin100-Yeah, I know what you mean, especially when it doesn't really hurt anyone, just humiliates them!  
  
He relaxed slightly as the ship settled into stable flight and Nicole took over the controls.  
  
"Okay, where do we head to now, the fairies don't like us and the only other option is a criminal."  
  
"Artemis Fowl is, according to the LEP's records under the influence of something called a mindwipe, we could eliminate the block and he should be more friendly and helpful."  
  
"How do we do that one?"  
  
"I have just the thing in this ship, the basic device is standard equipment, I can instruct you in how to modify it for use in this situation," Nicole responded, "As you would put it, a piece of cake, and then you would probably make some comment about how boring it was."  
  
"I am not that bad!"  
  
"Look, the Sonic I knew before ending up in your position is just as bad if not worse."  
  
"Alright already," Xander snorted back as he forced himself to relax, "What's our ETA?"  
  
"Fifteen minutes and closing, I'm taking an indirect route to prevent our destination from being predicted by the fairies."  
  
The shuttle descended slowly above the mansion, the soft whine of the engines the only noise besides the slight rustling of the bushes. The cloaking distorting the air slightly as it moved.  
  
The top hatch opened as the gunship leveled off aligned with the roof, Xander finished latching on the wings and fitting the headset on before leaping.  
  
His boots touched the reinforced roofing as he brought the fairy rifle to bear, the headset feed linking in to Nicole who was once more at his belt.  
  
"You patched in yet," he asked with a calm smile.  
  
"I've been in since before we landed, this stuff is 'quite' primitive compared to what I was used to on Mobius."  
  
"No need to get rude, just tell me what I need to do now," he responded as he knelt besides the rooftop entrance.  
  
"Entrance unlocked, internal security disabled," she answered with a sigh, "I could have done that while powered down."  
  
Slipping inside, Nicole triggered the cloaking field she had used before. The pair, AI and human, moved without noise. A slight sound alerted him to the presence of others up ahead and in the room he was heading for.  
  
"Nicole, scan and identify," he whispered into the mike.  
  
A moment later, she responded, "One female, name Juliet Butler, Two males, names Domonovoi Butler and Artemis Fowl, they seem to be discussing some sort of mirrored contact lenses, the files I acquired from the Fairy computers does list that Artemis Fowl used mirrored sunglasses to protect himself from Fairy abilities, namely Mesmer, but I am uncertain what this is about directly, but I believe it may have something to do with his own plan on recovering his memories."  
  
"Then we deal with this now," he answered back, "How do we restore the memories?"  
  
"The modifications you made to my holoprojector will allow me to use that to release the memories, but it will leave them unconscious for a few moments."  
  
"What do I have to do?"  
  
"I need to be within view of them, they have to be able to see the pulse."  
  
"Wonderful, I need to reveal myself."  
  
"Unfortunately, I cannot do the flash and maintain the cloak without a second projector."  
  
"Hardware limitations, just great, the one thing I didn't totally expect."  
  
"Yes, well, I do have a few upgrades I would like your help with when there is time, namely work on a dimensional gateway generator modification to record dimensional variances and a shield generator."  
  
"I'll try when we have time, but for now, let's do this!"  
  
He moved quickly, the doors card lock was open and the scanners for it were offline as were all the electronic parts. He leveled off the fairy rifle and set it to the smallest setting and fired a short burst into the key lock, eliminating it in a flash.  
  
All three occupants turned towards him as he stepped in, the holographic cloak vanishing to be replaced by a flash of blue light.  
  
A moment later, Xander could see again, noticing the three were on the floor, asleep.  
  
"How long?"  
  
"Seven or eight minutes, depends upon how long their minds work around this, but most likely the Butlers will awaken first, Artemis is unusually smart, but that also makes the reversal that much more difficult."


	6. Military Encounters

AN: This chapter has him moving on, it's proving hard to keep track of how things would work together, so I'm jumping earlier than I had thought I would. I'm sorry to everyone who was looking f0orwards to more interaction between Fowl and Xander  
  
Xander smiled as he focused on the last few hours, it hadn't taken much to modify the shuttle for interdimensional travel, although there wasn't the technology here to guide the jump, only to make a blind jump. Well partially, they could easily backtrack to places the ship had been to, just not to ones like his home, though they could identify it from their own signatures, just not home in on it.  
  
Nicole had scanned the area logging it into the system as he watched Fowl and the Butlers standing there, Fowl now had a few toys of his own to protect himself from the fairies, Nicole had given him the plans to safeguard his computers and an implant to protect his mind.  
  
He reached down, the chaos emerald powering the jump drives kicking in and he vanished like a wraith.  
  
The ship shook as if in an earthquake and then stabilized, engines sputtering as his eyes took in his surroundings.  
  
"Nicole, where am I?"  
  
"I've identified the planets datanets, we're on another earth, Fowl doesn't exist here, nor does Sunnydale, and it is also not matching the readings from Mobius."  
  
"Anything of interest?"  
  
"One moment, uh, we have a slight problem!"  
  
"And that would be?"  
  
"The military seems to have well..."  
  
"Nicole!"  
  
"They found us, we have four unidentified fighters closing, my search uncovered the designations of them, but not much else."  
  
"What are they?"  
  
"A prototype starfighter of sorts, I'm unclear as to the true designation is, I'm not calling them by an X name because it will change and then I'd have a lot more work in switching names."  
  
"So we have a bunch of Rogue Squadron wannabe's," he chuckled, "What else?"  
  
"The cloaking isn't working, so go for it flyboy!"  
  
"Roger that!" Xander chuckled as he glanced around, "Why the hell do these things look like a cloak shape from Star Wars and the Batwing?"  
  
He brought the shuttle vertically, evading their line of sight as he dropped low, "Can you track them for me, and I need all the data I can get on these idiots!"  
  
"I copy, found the reason they can track us, shifting modes, standard drive is now offline, AG field stabilized, visual cloaking still online."  
  
"Intercept all available data, I need to find a way to keep this up, keep us on their tail, I want to see where they go to," he said as he visibly relaxed, "I need to take a breather."  
  
xXx  
  
The shuttle dropped low over the landing field before settling a short distance away.  
  
"Alright, where are we?"  
  
"Colorado, the military here seems to have an unusual devise that allows some form of interplanetary travel, a gateway to the stars."  
  
"You mean like that Tunnel in the Sky book?"  
  
"No, a ring of some odd material that opens a wormhole, that sort of thing."  
  
"Science fiction made real, now there appears to be a reason for my Scifi addiction."  
  
"And you happen to be the only one with a way to use it."  
  
"Well, my luck, it can go either way."  
  
"Yes, you seem to dig yourself so deep it looks like your trapped and just manage to get out before it proves to be fatal!" 


End file.
